Bednarz, Cooper outlast Plainview in battle of ranked teams

Cooper senior guard Brittney Bednarz hit three free throws in the final seconds of the game after Plainview had erased a 10-point deficit with just over two minutes left, and Cooper escaped with a win.

Cooper's Brittney Bednarz drives downcourt with Plainview's Veronica Garcia and Laura Castillo in pursuit during their game on Tuesday in the Cooper gym. Bednarz scored 22 points in Cooper's 51-45 win.

WOODROW — The girls basketball teams for Plainview and Cooper are both ranked in the latest Texas Association of Basketball Coaches poll, yet both still are searching for answers.

Tuesday night when they met on the court, the Class 3A Lady Pirates had just a few more answers than the Class 4A No. 21 Lady Bulldogs, and in the end that made the difference in the 51-45 win for Cooper.

Senior guard Brittney Bednarz hit three free throws in the final seconds of the game after Plainview had erased a 10-point deficit with just over two minutes left, and Cooper (8-2) escaped with a win that head coach Trent Hilliard said will pay huge dividends down the road.

“Brittney did a good job of scoring for us, and that’s what’s good about this team is we can have different people step up and do different things,” Hilliard said. “Some of them were a little off their game still on Thanksgiving break I think, but this is the seventh ranked team we’ve played already out of 10 games. To go beat a 4A ranked team is special. The kids weren’t overly excited with the way they played and know they can get better. They’ve set the ball high and are working to get there.”

While Hilliard had four players with starting experience, veteran Plainview coach Danny Wrenn put a lineup on the floor with just one in senior guard Laura Castillo, who almost single-handedly brought the Lady Bulldogs (8-3) back from a early double-digit deficit. But the Lady Bulldogs had no one — yet — to follow her.

Castillo, who had a team-high 22 points, pulled Plainview to within 46-42 with just under a minute remaining in the game. After a Cooper bucket, Michelle Portillo converted a 3-point play to make it a one-possession game, and the Lady Bulldogs stole the ensuing inbounds pass.

But Portillo missed a 3-point attempt, and Bednarz grabbed the rebound and was fouled. She hit both free throws with 31.4 seconds left to push the lead to five, then hit one of two 13 seconds later to ice the game and finish with a team-high 22 points.

“I’m really proud of our you team,” Wrenn said. “They competed hard and Cooper’s a really good team and we knew they would be. All in all we’re trying to find the right mix of kids that will battle night in and night out. We’re disappointed in losing but we’re going to find some people that will battle hard like Laura. We’ve got a lot of young players and we’re finding out a lot of things,”

Early in the game, Wrenn tried to counter Cooper’s experience by pulling the ball out and milking the clock on almost every possession. Cooper was content to stay in its 2-3 zone and force Plainview to shoot from beyond the 3-point arc.

But that pace only proved to slow the game down more to the pace of the Lady Dogs’ liking, and coming out of an early timeout, Hilliard implored his team to pick up the pace. It took, however, until late in the second quarter for that to happen.

Tied at 17, Bednarz hit the second of her three second-quarter 3-pointers with 1:49 left in the first half, then after Plainview missed three free throws inside the final 1:24, Bednarz closed out the half with her third trey to put the Lady Pirates up 23-17 as Cooper closed the half on an 11-2 run.

Cooper then started the third quarter by working inside as forward Bridget Rampy and Beka Brown had layups on consecutive trips down the floor, and suddenly the Lady Pirates found themselves up by 10 at 27-17. That took Plainview out of its game plan of taking time off the clock.

“We felt after halftime after we got that six-point lead that we were in control and they weren’t going to be able to pull (the ball) out, and we wanted to extend our defense up without giving Castillo some good looks,” Hilliard said. “We just tried to continue to stay in the lead and play, and we learned a little bit at the end in some situations we didn’t respond well to. There are things we need to work on and the kids have to learn.”

Cooper was in control and looked as though it would take a double-digit lead into the final period, but Portillo hit a 3-pointer just before halftime, and Veronica Garcia followed it with a layup to start the fourth, and just like that Cooper’s lead was cut to six at 34-28.

The Lady Pirates briefly extended it back to 10 at 38-28 on a Tayla Mosser 3-pointer, and a trey from Brown pushed the lead to 41-30 with 3:27 remaining. But Castillo hit consecutive 3-pointers to slice the lead to five before another Mosser 3 and a layup by Rampy made it 46-36 with 2:05 remaining.

Plainview went on a 6-0 run to cut it to 46-42, setting up the final few tense moments in which Cooper found just enough key plays to finish off the win.

Portillo and Bailey Davis chipped in eight points each for Plainview.

Mosser and Rampy added nine points each for the Lady Pirates.

“Plainview’s going to be a good team because they will continue to get better and better with so many young kids out there,” Hilliard said. “Our experience is hopefully something we can lean on for the majority of the years. When it gets later we’re going to be playing some other teams like Shallowater that have a lot of experience, too. We’ve got to be able to execute and that’s what we’re working toward.”